Just Because
by inlovewithpadfoot
Summary: Gwaine saw their companionship. He saw Arthur's jealously. He saw Merlin's Destiny. He saw Emrys' tragedy. Gwaine saw because...


**Title**: Just Because.

**Disclaimer**: BBC/Shine owns them. I only get to play with them once in a while, unfortunately. :(

**Characters/Pairings**: Gwaine/Merlin; Arthur/Merlin (hinted); Gwen/Arthur (mentioned); Lancelot/Gwen (mentioned).

**Ratings**:Eh... hard R.

**Warnings**: Not explicit sex, (mention of) violence and blood, angst...like up the wazoo, some unrequited love, SPOILERS all through Season 3, SPOLERS for Arthurian Legend as a whole, het, slash.

**Summary**: Gwaine saw their companionship. He saw Arthur's jealously. He saw Merlin's Destiny. He saw Merlin's tragedy. Gwaine saw because...

**Author's** **Note**: So. This is...not the happiest of stories, but I'll let you be the true judge of that. Starts out with Gwaine in 3.04 and goes all through the end of the Arthurian Legend at Camlann. If you don't know how it ends, I suggest you not read the story.

**Word Count**: 2598.

Because you're the only friend I ever had.

Because you're the only one I ever loved.

Because you made me want to care,

You made me want to cry,

You made me want to hate,

You made me want to lie.

I give you this not because I'm thankful,

but because I've gone ahead

and forgotten I was supposed to die.

Gwaine saw.

He saw that very first time all those months ago when they opened the creaking door of the tavern, looking out of place and odd, but completely at ease because of each others company. He didn't give them much thought, other than to think they made an inexplicable duo. Especially when that one ugly brute whistled and more ugly brutes came in and the scrawny, dark haired man with that ridiculously dimpled smile didn't run out the door like any smart weakling should. Would. Rather, dashed to the broad, warrior looking blonde.

So of course, after that particular moment, Gwaine knew he couldn't sit by idly and watch what would surely be an amusing brawl. He just _had_ to get involved. It had absolutely nothing to do with the look exchanged between the two men; the familiarity, the companionship it conveyed. The knowledge that this wasn't the first time they had stood shoulder to shoulder against a scuffle. Not at all. What did a lone vagabond like him care about companions for?

Gwaine told himself when he sauntered to the front of the tavern, suavely talking about pickles and help, that he wouldn't let hi curiosity get the better of him. He would lend a hand to these two and be on his way. Except, the next thing he knew, he was standing in front of the tall, dark haired, peculiarly handsome fellow and said, "What do they call you, then?" and heard Merlin, with his long, warm fingers wrapped around Gwaine's slightly shorter ones. "Gwaine," he all but breathed – in a very gruff, manly manner, obviously.

And then it all went black.

But _after_ that, when he had recovered his wits and had been brought breakfast by aforementioned unusually attractive man whilst _sleeping_ shirtless in said man's bed, Gwaine saw.

He saw Merlin's forehead crease in three vertical frown lines, eyes glittering when he spoke of Arthur – Prince Arthur of Camelot, you saved his life – and his goodness. Then he saw the wide splitting of his face into a cheerful grin. Saw the teeth – and damn, they looked like they could bite a man _just_ right. The dimples on those pale cheeks, such a stark contrast to the dark bluish-gray eyes and even darker hair.

Then, and _then_, Gwaine saw Arthur see Merlin drag Gwaine back to his rooms after Gwaine had drunk himself into an almost stupor from a window up in the castle. That time when Gwaine pretended to be more drunk than he really was just so he could drape himself over Merlin. He saw how Arthur's eyes flashed and narrowed, his jaw tightened, gaze trained on Merlin's amused smile at Gwaine's antics. There was something, dare he say it? – almost like resentment in that gaze.

Months later, on a dangerously exhilarating quest, he saw Arthur's only just thinly veiled glare when he noted it was Gwaine with Merlin. Gwaine to whom Merlin went for help.

It hadn't stopped him though, last night, when Merlin looked at him over the flickering firelight of their small camp, or when Merlin leaned in just a sliver closer. When they lay down on the joined bedrolls, Merlin's slender form covering Gwaine fully. The space was no larger than Merlin's bed in Camelot, the last place they had done this, right after Gwaine's revelation. (Why _had_ he done that, he still wondered even today? Trust Merlin with something he had never bothered to tell anyone else before, no matter how wrecked he had been).

Both times, Gwaine wondered how Merlin – quiet, wise-in-a-I-always-know-more-than-you-kind-of-way _Merlin –_ made Gwaine consider maybe, just maybe staying in one place, in Camelot, might not be an altogether abominable idea.

Either way, Arthur didn't like Gwaine nor did he particularly trust him. And Gwaine knew that Arthur knew that Gwaine knew that Arthur felt disinclined to be friendly to Gwaine, tolerating him for the sake of Merlin. Gwaine didn't really begrudge him that when he felt the same.

It was mutual, really. Except when Gwaine found Merlin safe in the throne room and took the opportunity to embrace the taller man tightly while Arthur only permitted himself an arm-slap. Gwaine saw Arthur stiffen over the trident as Merlin and Gwaine greeted enthusiastically. Honestly, no one could have refrained from smirking outrageously after that.

No. One.

When it came time for Gwaine to part ways with Merlin and Arthur at Camelot's borders, Gwaine saw relief in Arthur's eyes. Relief mixed with sadness when Merlin hesitated to trot after him on his own horse. But Gwaine knew this was how it should be. For now, at least.

Merlin and Arthur. Arthur and Merlin. Inseparable from each other.

"You can't have everything, eh?" Gwaine joked, mostly to see that fusion of smirk and sheepish snort on Merlin's face.

Except, Arthur did. Arthur had Merlin, and for Gwaine's stupid – not besotted, gods no – chest flutters, that was enough. Merlin nodded at him, half 'Good luck on your travels'; half, 'Hope we meet again soon'. Although, the latter might just be a figment of Gwaine's imagination.

As he watched the two figures disappear into the valley that would lead them to Camelot's castle, Gwaine grimaced in a resigned fashion. He was still sore from Merlin's... attentions the night before and had a long way to go before the nearest tavern came along. His horse turned around. Gwaine twisted to look over his shoulder once more. Merlin and Arthur were nothing more than pinpricks on the horizon now.

Gwaine sighed and tried not to think of Merlin's parting words much.

"Maybe one day..."

The problem, Gwaine mused, as he waited in Jarl's dungeons with eight other men some four odd weeks later, wasn't that Merlin wasn't friendly. Oh, no. He was very, very friendly. However, the friendliness seemed to come with some unspoken conditions.

The first time they had drunkenly – well, Gwaine was nine sheets to the wind at any rate – tumbled into bed, Gwaine had lifted Merlin's tunic up over his head. He had expected smooth, flawless skin, as pale as the fey in moonlight. What he found instead was a chest crisscrossed with a dozen scars.

Dazedly, Gwaine traced a finger over a roughly circular burn scar over Merlin's heart, fascinated by how Merlin shivered over him at the touch. There was another, longer one stretching from Merlin's left hip to his navel. And there, four stripes looking like chain links burned into his skin. Gwaine breathed on them once before pulling back and frowned at Merlin. "Did Ar –"

Merlin cut him off with an amused shake of his head, dipped his head to work at Gwaine throat. After that, Gwaine learned not to mention the marks again. They were there, yes, but they weren't to be talked about, an untouched part of Merlin he wasn't privy to, not yet.

Gwaine soon realized there were two sides to Merlin: There was Merlin, the mess of a servant; then there was the Merlin who slid against him, with him, in him perfectly, confidently with some hidden power he kept locked away somewhere behind his cheerful smile. It never failed to make Gwaine's breath catch.

"You there, yeah. The shaggy haired. You're next."

Gwaine sighed. Loathe as he was to halt thoughts of Merlin, he had a fight to win.

Weeks later, when Gwaine saw Jarl's henchmen bring a struggling Arthur and a limp body with a mop of dark hair that undoubtedly belonged to Merlin. Gwaine thought his throat might choke up. He stayed in the back, waiting until he was sure Merlin was not seriously injured.

"What was it you were saying about me being a pessimist?"

Gwaine smirked to himself. He was all right. Cheeky as ever, and maybe a little dazed from his knockout, but all right. From there on, it was only too easy to follow him. Gwaine wondered if there would ever come a time he wouldn't willingly do anything for Merlin.

Arthur allowed him to come, however grudgingly. Until then, Gwaine would have said Arthur cared little for what – or who – his manservant did. But in that one reluctant moment on Arthur's part, Gwaine did wonder.

It was a rough couple of weeks: hiking; fighting; hiding; fighting again; almost dying...

It all worked out in the end, despite the odds – which really were not the true reason.

When Gwaine saw his eyes change from cerulean to gold that first time, a year after Jarl's dungeons, after Morgana, after battling undead armies he saw more than just a deadly secret. Gwaine saw a destiny and he saw something he would never be a part of no matter how viciously he glared at Arthur.

For the first time in two years, Gwaine wished he'd never left his satchel and sword, everything he'd ever needed right there.

From then on it was a mesh of memories and a blur or colors:

Uther dead; Arthur King; Gwen his Queen.

Then Merlin became the High Sorcerer and those quiet nights when Gwaine – and only Gwaine – spent hours next to him, stretched and sweaty and languid in bed lessened. Merlin had duties. Merlin needed to protect the land. Merlin had a destiny. But most of all, Merlin was really Arthur's.

Except for that one night here and there when he was still for Gwaine.

And then, it all changed.

It changed the night Merlin woke up trembling and wide-eyed, staring right through Gwaine and his demands for explanation. He left soon after muttering something about Druids and the Lake and maybe Emrys.

He didn't come back for four days.

Four days in which Arthur glared at Gwaine as though to say _He_ _was_ _with_ _you,_ and _you_ _should_ _have_ _stopped_ _him_.

Four days of Gwaine pacing Lancelot's chambers, crushing his fingers in a punishing motion and thinking Merlin wouldn't come back. Fearing Gwaine had made him leave. Gwaine with his inability to let Merlin go and be Arthur's. Unwillingness to confess his horrifying secret, to whisper _I_ _love_ _you._

On the fifth morning Merlin came back looking grim and shaken but very much alive. Gwaine was in the council chamber with Arthur, his queen and the knights seated perfectly around the Round Table – except for the seat on Arthur's right – when the doors opened to show them all a weary Merlin who smiled wanly at his King and squeezed Gwaine's shoulder.

That night, Merlin pushed into his harsh and bruising, as though he were trying to take and take and take what he could _now, _as if he had all the time in the world but not enough to satisfy him.

Later, Merlin rested his head on Gwaine's shoulders and etched nonsensical lines on his torso. He told Gwaine a story of a cursed man who could See his beautiful destiny, but doomed to live a tragedy. _'Cause you see, _Merlinwhispered_, he's cursed to live on without the relief of Death, waiting for something that isn't likely to come for millenia._

At the time, Gwaine was drowsy and sated and grateful to have Merlin back that he didn't give much thought to the story.

As the years went by, Merlin's bright smiles dimmed. He should have known since then, should have realized. But Morgana was amassing another army with Mordred and Arthur was busy becoming High King of Albion. Destiny was playing out so Gwaine dismissed it. Dismissed Arthur's ever heated glares and Lancelot's concerned, flickering gaze and Gwen's knowing looks of sadness.

It built and built and Merlin's hadn't been in his bed for four months when Arthur cornered him one day.

"Fix it," he said. "Fix him. Or I will."

And Gwaine said, "You have Gwen and you have your destiny. Let me have this."

Six months later Gwen and Lancelot eloped as per the King's orders.

The people cried in the streets, outraged on their beloved King's behalf, while the Court whispered at his ever growing seclusion. Merlin, well...Merlin gave worried sidelong glances from his perch next to Arthur until one night they went to his chambers and Merlin didn't come out until the next morning.

Gwaine spent his night at the tavern.

Mere weeks after that Mordred declared war with Morgana standing next to him, tall and pale and beautiful in her cruelty. One of the knights, Sir Leon, muttered something about cutting her where she stood.

"No," Merlin said sharply. "She's mine. My responsibility. My mistake." There is something nostalgic in the way he says it.

The night before, Merlin came into Gwaine's tent, and although Gwaine wanted to refuse, he couldn't. He had never been able to deny Merlin anything.

So even though he wanted to push him away and ask why, why he went to Arthur when there was no more Gwen, no more Queen, _do_ _I_ _really_ _mean_ _so_ _little_ _to_ _you_? He didn't.

He drank Merlin in. Kissed him over and over again, sometimes urgent but mostly soft and tender and...dare he say it? – loving. He moaned Merlin's name reverently as the warlock eased into him slowly, sighed _Gwaine_, _Gwaine_ _I'm_ _so_, _so_ _sorry_. Gwaine hushed him, rocking up against Merlin wanting him to be closer and deeper and just _more._

Gwaine was afraid he might have let the forbidden words slip past his lips. May have whispered love and you into Merlin's still quite comically large ear.

It wasn't until the next day when he lay bleeding on the fields of Camlann, Merlin's arms wrapped around him, that he realized what he had been missing all these years, lost in his own obliviousness.

Gwaine saw how Merlin had no gray hair. He saw how Merlin's face had not yet lost the freshness of youth when they were all well into their thirties, some even forties. He saw the sadness lurking in Merlin's eyes constantly. Finally, he saw what Merlin could See and what he himself had been missing all these years.

"Merlin," he gasped as crimson liquid flowed out of his abdomen. He wrenched his callused, blood drenched hand away from the gaping wound and ran it through Merlin's still baby-soft black hair. "My beautiful, immortal Merlin."

And Merlin cried, the tears landing on Gwaine's cheek as they both shook tremendously.

"It was you. It was always you," Merlin whispered to him, peppering kisses all over Gwaine's dirt caked and battle weary face. "He was my destiny, but you were my marvel."

Gwaine smiled at that a little. He had to. "It's okay. Shh. Hey."

Merlin shook his head. Kissed Gwaine desperately, their last. "I love you."

Somewhere on the battle ground he heard twin grunts of pain echo across the field as Arthur and Mordred dealt each other mortal blows. Merlin didn't move.

"I know," Gwaine whispered."Me too." Gwaine stroked Merlin's youthful face one last time. "Merlin." He arched in his arms and Death surrounded him. "Emrys..."

The last thing Gwaine saw was Merlin's eyes turning gold before the world burst into luminescent white light.


End file.
